Just 15 days before she was brutally slain, Imette St. Guillen wrote of her compassion and understanding for juvenile killers – blaming poor education and rising unemployment for a troubling rise in homicide in Boston, her hometown.

“I strongly believe that the reason for the increase in juvenile homicide in Boston during the past 15 years stems not from criminal justice policies and programs but from a lack of job opportunities for young people, a poor public school system . . . and from an increase in living expenses without a comparable increase in wages,” the 24-year-old grad student wrote.

“The gap between the middle class and the lower class is increasing, and I believe this causes tension amongst and within communities,” she wrote.

St. Guillen posted her assignment Feb. 10 on a John Jay College electronic class discussion board.

On Feb. 25, the always-smiling stunner was raped and murdered, and her body was dumped in an empty lot along the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn.

“This says a lot about the type of person she was,” said classmate and friend David Speal, who spoke at a memorial at the West Side college Friday night.

Speal, 24, works to help inmates make the transition from prison to the outside world.

“Imette was so kind and caring . . . She has made me so much more committed, she has taught me so much,” he said.

Darryl Littlejohn, 41, a bouncer at The Falls, a SoHo bar, was charged with her murder. Blood found on the plastic ties that bound St. Guillen’s wrist matched his DNA.

In the class forum on “Public Policy and Juvenile Homicide in Boston,” St. Guillen said it was society and not solely the killer to blame for their lives of crime.

“If I was to make one recommendation, it would be the following: We, as a society, need to spend more money, resources, and time to the welfare and education of young people starting at an early age,” she wrote.

“I am not trying to negate other factors, such as police tactics and drugs contribute to the change in crime rates (of course they do) but I think it is time to take preventative steps by way of education.”